Many upper respiratory allergy sufferers also suffer nasal congestion and headaches or other associated pains. Thus, there is a need for a product that can treat all three of these symptoms, preferably a single tablet that can treat such symptoms for over a period of eight hours. However, combining pharmaceutically active agents into a single tablet often creates difficulties. First, the duration of action for pharmaceutically active agents are often different, and thus, extended release of one or more of the pharmaceutically active agents may be required. Also, pharmaceutically active agents may be incompatible in that they react and degrade when combined with each other.
Both of these issues exist with the combination of the antihistamine cetirizine, the nasal decongestant pseudoephedrine, and the analgesic naproxen. While naproxen is approved for use up to twelve hours and cetirizine is approved for up to twenty-four hours (both without extended release modifications), pseudoephedrine is not. Also, applicants have discovered that cetirizine degrades in the physical presence of both pseudoephedrine and naproxen when combined in a tablet.
Thus, the present invention relates to a novel tablet that contains these three pharmaceutically active agents.